


Will the Detective Fall in Love?

by soupgonebad



Category: The Good Cop (TV)
Genre: Genderbending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 04:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18461558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupgonebad/pseuds/soupgonebad
Summary: Corey Vasquez met Tony Caruso’s son that day. It was the beginning of many things good and bad, sometimes both at the same time, often in equal measure.





	Will the Detective Fall in Love?

Tony Junior came into office with a mild headache. That should have been his first sign of worst things to come. He thought it’d simply been a case of caffeine deprivation. He was about to get himself a cup of coffee when he saw a stranger sitting in his office. From where he stood, he saw dark hair, clearly styled and slightly mussed, a dark leather jacket and a silver of dark olive as the stranger raised his arm and raked his fingers through his hair. The stranger had clearly been waiting for him for a while. 

He thought it was for a case. It turned out to be about his father. 

Tony Junior met Tony Caruso’s parole officer that day. It was the beginning of many things good and bad, sometimes both at the same time, often in equal measure.

*

Corey Vasquez had heard about the infamous Tony Junior before he had even met the latter. It was hard not to, considering the notoriety of Tony the Tiger, not to mention how he would be bordering on unprofessional if he had not even tried to dig up something on his client’s son before their first meeting. 

He had been expecting the clean cut, boy scout look. He didn’t expect to like the guy. 

It had been a series of unfortunate could-haves. They had been narrowly missing each other for the past few visits to prison. He had heard from the guards of how he had seemed to be dogging the steps of another young man when he had come to check up on Caruso. Decent looking kinda guy. By the book. Always in tie, and always buttoned up to the last button. 

Corey had tried to place Tony Senior’s face in such a suit and failed. 

Then the doors to Tony Junior’s office had swung open. He had swiveled around in the visitor’s chair to neatly combed brown hair, brown-rimmed glasses and big brown eyes. Tony Junior’s voice was this soft, feathered thing that tickled the underside of Corey’s long deadened heart and threatened its resurrection. He looked and sounded nothing like Tony Senior. He was the split image of his mother. 

“Hi, can I help you?”

“Hey.”

*

Corey’s sexuality was public knowledge in the station. He never tried to hide it, nor did he flaunt it. It simply was a fact of life that his colleagues accepted. When you had someone capable of and willing to guard your back, what he did with his private parts in his private time was his own damn private business. 

He had thought that this wasn’t going to be a problem, until Warren came along, and TJ started acting strangely. 

He didn’t think it was a homophobic thing. It couldn’t be. TJ had known before he had submitted a request for Corey’s addition to the team. Of course, at first, Corey had been uncertain of where he had stood and there had been the initial period of slight prodding via a series of calculated flirting - both at his partner and at others. TJ’s reactions had been consistent. Lips pressed. Eyes shut. Head lowered or slightly shaking. Some mild, muted response that had always seemed more exasperated than disapproving. Sometimes, he had even sighed. 

“Why do you do this to me?”

Laughter would tickle at Corey’s ribs. His face would be free of expression, but his words would come out smiling. 

“Because I can.”

But now. Now, he would find TJ staring at him with his big brown eyes, dark and unfathomable. He never thought he would ever describe TJ in such a way. They had been partners for so long, and really great partners, at that. He had thought himself a great reader of Anthony Caruso Junior. Every thought projected clearly from his partner’s eyes, the way he held himself, or even the way he held himself back, be it from some action or words that he might deem an infraction. Corey had thought he knew them all. Like pages to a dictionary he had thumbed through repeatedly, fondly. 

And now, TJ would stare at him with his dark eyes and for the first time, Corey didn’t know what his partner was thinking. What he was hiding from him. 

He needed to know what TJ meant, when he told him not to do it. Not to love Warren. 

*

It was the first time he had seen TJ in anything other than a suit and tie. He was soft around the edges in his sweater, a frying pan in his hand and worry lining his eyes as he asked if he wanted more eggs. Corey didn’t think he could handle the sudden flood of tenderness that rolled into his heart, like gentle waves, rising and ebbing, and, in their quietly persistent intrusions, smoothed away the jagged edges of his broken, aching heart. He was hurting so damn much. 

TJ’s eyes were soft and big and filled with concern. Corey was reminded of their first meeting. The brush of a feathered thing against his heart. A tentative stirring that he had perhaps tried too hard to forget then. 

He didn’t want beer. He wanted to pull TJ in and wrap his own arms tightly around the man. He wanted to press him fiercely against his own chest. He wanted to feel the faint tickling of his heart again, he wanted it to grow, he wanted the weight of this tenderness to drive the pain out from his body as he pressed his lips into TJ’s neck and breathed the latter in. He wanted to taste TJ’s heartbeat and in doing so get his bleeding broken heart to beat again, in unison with one that was unbroken and whole. 

*

They were cousins to each other and nephews to the late Mrs Ackroyd. The marriage counselor tagged them as a couple minutes into their aunt’s memorial. Corey might have found that funny if not for how impossible a thing that was. It was so far from reality, from the realm of possibility, that he could barely stand to let his mind linger on the thought. He made a quick escape. 

His mind had gotten itself stuck firmly and stubbornly on the image of TJ - tongue stuck out for a moment as he tried to navigate his embarrassment and surprise. He had to go, then, before his lips followed and he kissed his own damn boss. 

*

He had forgotten that TJ had lost a mother. Perhaps not recently, but the injury remained fresh, the wound raw. He watched as TJ led Donovan away and into the police car, his hand firm on the boy’s shoulder, both guiding and protective. Corey wondered if, during those long, dark nights, in his father’s absence, TJ had longed for something similar. A warm hand on his shoulder, a firm shake that said, reassuringly, that everything wasn’t fine now, but that they would be, eventually. 

*

There was an emptiness in Corey. It grew and grew, expanding in width and height, turning bigger, almost the size of him. It was human-shaped. It would hold TJ perfectly.


End file.
